


Adira’s Official Masterlist of Times Stamets & Culber Act Like Their Dads

by beantown



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Canon Gay Relationship, Canon Non-Binary Character, Canon Trans Character, Dadmets, Eeby Deeby - Freeform, Families of Choice, Found Family, Hugh Culber Is A Good Dad, Multi, Paul Stamets is a Good Dad, Post-Season/Series 03, Queer Families, Screen Reader Friendly, Stabby the Space Roomba, it fills my soul with joy to add those last 3 tags, mutual pining: found family edition, no beta we die like philippa (prime), trans characters written by trans author
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29300973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beantown/pseuds/beantown
Summary: Post season 3, Adira bonds with Stamets and Culber as they work on getting Gray a corporeal body.Only rated T because the author cannot stop swearing. I apologize.
Relationships: Adira Tal/Gray Tal, Hugh Culber & Adira Tal, Hugh Culber/Paul Stamets, Paul Stamets & Adira Tal
Comments: 10
Kudos: 31





	Adira’s Official Masterlist of Times Stamets & Culber Act Like Their Dads

Adira left the Medbay and headed for the turbolift. They had been deep in discussion with Culber for the past hour, brainstorming various ways to help Gray be corporeal again. A million ideas were still buzzing in their head, and they had the sort of headache that comes with cramming too much information into your brain all at once. Not the bad kind, like, “if this school day doesn’t end in the next two minutes I will explode”. The good kind, the kind where everything is really interesting and you are suddenly reminded why you love learning so much. It’s still exhausting, though, and they leaned heavily on the back wall of the turbolift, staring blankly up at the ceiling, wishing coffee would rain down from it into their mouth. 

“Adira?”

They grinned at Gray, who had appeared beside them. Their grin slowly faded as they registered the look on his face. 

“What’s up?” They asked hesitantly, not letting themself spiral thinking about all the things that could have happened to make Gray so upset. 

Gray looked down at the floor, his hand flickering as it glided through Adira’s hand in his desperate attempt to hold it. Damn, Adira wanted to cry, thinking about it. But they didn’t, they just became that much more determined to give their boyfriend a physical body as soon as possible, because they were going to hug him and never let go again. 

“You shouldn’t be working so hard to help me,” he told them quietly. “It isn’t healthy. You don’t eat and sleep properly and if you keep this up you’re gonna get sick!”

“Stop it, Gray! Of course I’m gonna help you! I’m gonna get you a physical body if it’s the last thing I do!” 

Gray cringed away at that. He had tears in his eyes when Adira looked at him. 

“What good is having a body if you’re not there ‘cause you worked yourself to death to get it for me?!” Gray retorted fiercely.

Adira knew he wasn’t really angry, even if he kinda sounded like it. This was just how he expressed his Protective Boyfriend™️ feelings. Seeing Gray fuming like this would have scared anyone else, but not Adira. 

“Gray, I’m sorry I’m scaring you. I’m not gonna stop working as hard as I can to help you, though. But y’know, we can have safety rules if you want. ‘Cause I’m not leaving you. Not now, not ever.”

Gray looked relieved and leaned against Adira, resting his head on their shoulder. It was still comforting, even if he couldn’t feel them. 

“Promise me,” he asked them, “ if you’re overworking yourself, you’ll talk to Hugh and Paul? Please?”

Adira nodded and smiled at Gray, but it didn’t reach their eyes. 

Adira didn’t want to burden their new ~~dads~~ _friends_ , because Adira was new on Discovery, didn’t know what Stamets and Culber thought about them yet, didn’t know if they were allowed to ask them for help for something non-work-related, and was _definitely_ going to keep the whole seeing-them-as-father-figures thing to themself. No way they were telling them. If they ever found out, Adira would not be able to handle that rejection, so they would _not_ tell them. Nope. You can’t be emotionally wrecked by the fact that people you see as your chosen family dads don’t see you as their kid if you don’t tell them. Perfect logic. Michael might be proud of them. But then again, nobody had ever...

The turbolift shuddered and hummed. Startled, Adira looked up. The screen on the wall where Adira had plugged in their request to go to Engineering flashed, and the blue text changed so it now read-

“Eeby Deeby?” Gray asked incredulously. 

“What the FUCK is Eeby Deeby?!” Adira yelled.

“Don’t you mean WHERE the fuck?!” Gray yelled back.

“Meh, I don’t really give a fuck. Hope it’s gay though.” They shrugged, and smirked at Gray’s shocked expression.

“How could you  _ not  _ care where Eeby Deeby is?” 

“Can’t be bad if you’re there.” Not to brag, but Adira thought their pick-up line was pretty great. Gray’s face lit up into one of his signature smiles that are so infectious the whole room glows with him. Adira thought he had the best smile out of everyone in existence. Adira also really, really wished they could kiss him. 

The turbolift dinged, signalling their arrival in Eeby Deeby. Wherever the fuck that was. Instinctually, Gray went to grab Adira’s hand, even if he knew it wouldn’t work. 

Adira felt a familiar hand grab theirs, but they thought they must be imagining it, their desperation to have Gray physically here with them going to their head. But then they looked down. Their very real hand was holding another very real hand.  _ Gray’s _ very real hand. Adira was too shocked for words and looked up at Gray’s face. He was crying. Adira felt themself start crying too. They stood there for a moment, holding hands and crying, in this turbolift that had delivered them to some strange purgatory known only as Eeby Deeby, just looking at each other. 

Adira realized they had zoned out, and came back to reality. The first words out of their mouth were “Can I kiss you?”

Gray’s smile only got wider. “I don’t know,” he said in a snarky teacher impression. “ _ Can _ you?”

Adira didn’t answer and just kissed him. It worked. They were holding Gray again, for the first time in too long, and everything was perfect in that moment. 

Adira hugged Gray for a long time, because  holy _ fuck _ , was that boy touch-starved. 

The turbolift made a whooshing sound as the door opened. Gray disappeared instantly. 

Adira waved their hand through the air in front of them where Gray was just standing. “Gray? Where did you go?” Gray?!” They sat down on the floor and cried, because that’s what any sensible person would do if their boyfriend just vanished into thin air. 

“Adira?” a familiar voice called, and Adira couldn’t help but mumble “oh shit” under their breath. They scrambled up from the floor, wiping the tears off their face and trying to pretend like everything was normal, before turning to face a concerned looking Stamets. 

“Whatcha doing sitting on the floor? Wait. Have you been crying?” Adira didn’t want to ever appear this weak, this much of a complete fucking disaster in front of Stamets, because what if he didn’t like them anymore? But there was no way around it, they couldn’t think of a decent explanation other than the truth. 

“Gray was just…” they started slowly, struggling to find the words. “He was here? Real? Like we were holding hands and he was just here but now he’s gone and it’s stupid and I was probably imagining it but it felt so damn real and, I dunno. It’s stupid, don’t worry about it.”

“I don’t think it’s stupid.” 

That was the last response Adira was expecting, so they couldn’t help but laugh. How could someone possibly listen to the bullshit that just came out of their mouth and not think it’s stupid? 

“Um, excuse me?! Obviously because I care about you?! Now that, what you just said? That was stupid.”

Fuck. They hadn’t realized they’d said that out loud. 

“C’mon, let’s go kid.” Stamets put an arm around Adira (who tried not to spontaneously combust) and the two of them headed into Engineering. “I’ll show you what I’ve been working on, and you tell me about whatever happened with Gray in the turbolift, alright?” 

Adira cheered up considerably at the suggestion & grinned up at Stamets, who ruffled their hair affectionately. Adira privately added this to the list of things he did that felt like how a dad would act with his kid. 

Stamets led them to a workstation, where a black, circular machine with multiple knives taped to it was sitting. Stamets gestured to it proudly and announced, “Adira, meet Stabby. Stabby, Adira.” 


End file.
